It is ev­i­dent that the almighty favours our prime min­is­ter, since light­ning has struck twice in the same place, which is ev­i­dent­ly a sec­ond chance to cor­rect a mis­step. The first time was the Fi­fa scan­dal, which im­pli­cat­ed a se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in a myr­i­ad of wrong­do­ings that taint­ed the lo­cal po­lit­i­cal land­scape in the eyes of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. At that time, the gra­cious­ness, hu­mil­i­ty and loy­al­ty of the PM pre­vent­ed cor­rec­tive ac­tion that was both jus­ti­fied and nec­es­sary.

Now fast for­ward to 2013 where the un­fold­ing Fly­ing Squad fi­as­co is yet again a re­minder of the need for the PM to take ac­tion. Im­me­di­ate­ly pri­or to her de­par­ture to the re­cent Heads of Gov­ern­ment Se­cu­ri­ty Con­fer­ence in Haiti, the same se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial mis­led the PM when he in­formed her that the Fly­ing Squad was just "a storm in a teacup."

It must have been very em­bar­rass­ing to the PM when the Fly­ing Squad fi­as­co erupt­ed dur­ing the con­fer­ence, at a time when the T&T del­e­ga­tion was work­ing hard to take a lead in the fight against crime. Giv­en the cur­rent role played by said gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, I imag­ine the oth­er del­e­gates would have col­lec­tive­ly ex­pe­ri­enced a sense of un­ease when T&T pro­posed to house the new re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty head­quar­ters here.

Madam PM, heavy is the brow that wears the crown and yours is heav­ier than most. You are up to the chal­lenge and the na­tion is look­ing to you to do what must be done. What was left un­done dur­ing the Fi­fa scan­dal must now be seen as a much need­ed sec­ond chance to rid the UNC of a po­lit­i­cal mill­stone that, if left un­at­tend­ed, may very well spell the death knell of the par­ty in the days to come.

His skil­ful ma­nip­u­la­tions to be­stow un­to him­self the sta­tus of a de­mi-god for self­ish ag­gran­dis­e­ment can­not stem the tide. No amount of sweet-mouth plat­i­tudes, protes­ta­tions and sleight of hand on his part can rewrite the even­tu­al out­come.In­deed Madam PM, had the shoe been on the oth­er foot, the man of ac­tion would have act­ed from the get go; af­ter all his cre­do of "yes­ter­day is yes­ter­day and to­day is to­day" throws loy­al­ty, hu­mil­i­ty and gra­cious­ness out the win­dow.

Al­ready, in an act of des­per­a­tion, this mas­ter sur­vival­ist is or­ches­trat­ing to find scape­goats un­der the guise of plau­si­ble de­ni­a­bil­i­ty, but de­spite his re­cent­ly coined phrase "the gulli­bil­i­ty of a na­tion," these very peo­ple will en­sure that the day of reck­on­ing comes.God speed Madam PM! May your ar­row be both straight and true.

Dr Franklin Ali

San Fer­nan­do